A Martyr at Work: perfection serves no purpose

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been in competition with myself: do more, be more, do better, be better.  

Be the best you can be.  

What’s wrong with that one might ask? 

While it felt good for a while and I got a lot of recognition for it – being the reliable one who could always do anything I was asked to do and to a high quality, I’ve come to realise that it’s just not it. It is like a beast that is always hungry for more, no matter how many times a day I feed it, it keeps coming to the feeding station. It has got to a point where it is becoming not worth the trade-off of sacrificing my body and my connection to something I know is much bigger and far grander than the physical me and something that is in truth my greatest ‘craving’. For what? Just to get something done, tick things off a list and feel safe.  

What is this ‘safety’ that does anything but keep us ‘safe’? I have a PhD in learning that perfection is a hefty wall of protection that is very easy to hide behind. When we make everything that we do ‘perfect’ (whatever that looks like) and get attached to the picture perfect, we leave no gaps for anyone to offer their observations and even to criticise or disagree with us. And by doing that we build artificial borders around us with “no entry” signs and we cut ourselves off even more from people: people whose reflections we need and who also need our reflection to evolve and grow.  We simply cannot be or do without others. 

Yet, this is how most of the world lives. So many of us are lost in work, shopping, netflix, gossip, other people’s lives, complaining… it’s a long list. Waiting for the high of the next fleeting holiday to get us through to the next 6 months, or cup of tea and piece of cake, or task to tick off a list to get us through the day.. all are the same drug of reward, just different flavours.  

I might convince myself that I am reflecting some kind of superwoman to my team and the office with my can-do work ethic, but if I am driven and my body is hard, for being in drive is not our body’s natural modus operandi and it puts the body in a state of hardness much like when we are standing out in the freezing cold with inadequate clothing, and if I’m exhausted and silently resentful, they can still feel it. There is nothing that cannot be felt by another, there is only a choice to feel what’s going on under the physicality or not. And no matter how long I might believe I am staying under the radar – which includes my thoughts and the inner state of my body – no one is inspired by a lie, no matter how artfully and beautifully I might dress it up.  

I reached a crunch point the other day where I got to feel the drive and hardness of how I’d been working and pushing my body. When I overload myself with work and tasks and leave no space for these things let alone anything else, my body feels compressed and I feel joyless and disconnected. I feel out of sync and rhythm with myself, and irritated. There is a feeling of far greater density in my body with no space left for God to work alongside me while I’m doing what I’m doing, and no matter how hard I might try I can’t feel the depth of the magnificence of what we are all intrinsically connected to. Life feels very one dimensional and there is nothing to write about, or say. Rather than stop and allow myself to feel all of that, so that I can offer myself an opportunity to change the unpleasant state, often I will want to bury myself further into the numbness by working more, eating more … finding anything I can to distract myself.  No wonder the saying: we are our own worst enemy. 

But yesterday was different.  

I just allowed myself to accept where I was at and how I felt in my body, to feel how this cuts me off from that deeper knowing of myself and connecting with others, and to move differently. To pay attention to every single movement and bring focus to making it gentle. This super simple process instantly made me feel lighter and more inspired by what’s possible, and mostly that I wasn’t a bad person for having lost myself in overdrive. 

What I also got to feel was that as we refine our choices for how we are and how we move, the choices that aren’t aligned to that same gentle, tender and delicate quality really stand out and feel so much worse than what we  might have previously considered to be abusive.  

And there again is another choice: to react and judge the choice as ‘bad’, or to see it as an opportunity to learn and come out the other end much wiser and to treasure ourselves more. This is precisely how we continuously raise our standards in relationships with others across the board for what is and what is not allowed so that ultimately one day we all treat ourselves and our bodies as the sacred temples that they truly are. 

“Women must rekindle their own rhythms within society and not let society demand of them what is not natural to their body.”

Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teachings & Revelations,  p526 

By B, UK  

For further inspiration.. 

Choosing function or true focus: how does this support us as we go about our day? The profoundness of self-care at all times.

What happens when we connect to our qualities and commit to making them our foundation for how we live in every moment of our day?

A Successful Woman

Attending a women’s group has been a great support and valuable learning for me; it is something I cherish and look forward to. Just before the last women’s group, I came across some old notes that I had written from a women’s group a few years back. On the top of the page I had written a question: what does it feel like to be a successful woman? 

The Choice to Appreciate and Self-Nourish

I recently attended an Esoteric ‘Well-being for Women’ group. These groups run worldwide and are designed to support women to re-connect to what we know to be true and to live from this quality in everyday life. We discussed something that is often considered the ‘norm’: the thoughts we allow, that can become an inner conversation. 

Does this support or hinder us and why do we allow it?

Dishonouring Choices, Self-Worth and Their Impact on Everyday Life

Millions of women are affected world-wide by a lack of self-worth – it is our modern-day plague. This lack of self-worth is one of the underlying reasons why many women make so many choices every day which are not only dishonouring of themselves, but can be deeply abusive; further cementing the false beliefs and negative self-talk that we are not worthy of love for ourselves or of being loved by others too. So, we could say that this is a critical topic to bring our attention and discussion to.

Women – is There More of Us to Appreciate?

In a recent conversation with a female friend we were sharing our appreciation of another. This may sound like a normal, everyday thing to do, however there was something quite spectacular and revelatory about our conversation…

As we shared and reflected about this person we discovered that there was even more to appreciate. This person was making an ever-growing amount of choices in their life that were supporting them to feel (in their own words) more like themselves than ever before.

My Underwear Story – from Practical to Pretty!

As a child growing up there was not a lot of money coming into our household so I would wear hand me downs that my mother altered to fit me, and as for underwear, it was plain and practical.

Our home life was not a happy one in any way. I lived for the day that my father would finally see me for who I was, or even talk with me. There was never any sharing or chatting with each other, and as children my sister and I only seemed to be spoken to when we were judged to be in trouble. Even Mum and Dad very seldom spoke to each other. At school the children used to chatter away to each other, but for me I was always on the outside thinking that ‘no one wanted to hear what I had to say’, and my self confidence and self worth slowly diminished every day.

A Woman’s True Beauty: The Strength in Fragility

Women – Are we living in a man’s world? We all know about boys having to be tough – “Boys don’t cry”, boys get given toys to confirm their future roles – trucks, footballs, fiction-hero’s, games of war….

We women may feel that we have to compete in this competitive male world, and many of us have tried to create an even playing field in our pursuit of equality for women – with the fight for the right to work, equal pay in the workforce, day-care for young children, female cricket and footy teams, promotions, baby bonuses and more. At the same time we have found ourselves often comparing with each other with regard to academic achievement, ideals of beauty, having more money or a successful career, being in relationships versus being single, and having kids.

Have we lost the precious qualities of true beauty and fragility in this battle for equality and respect?

Discovering I have Ovaries and a Cervix

I first contemplated the possibility that I could have a connection with my own ovaries and cervix after I heard Natalie Benhayon present, and say as women we did not have to try to feel our ovaries, as we were women and we all have them!

So I started exploring if I could feel my ovaries. Initially, I began with just having a sense of where my ovaries were physically, putting my palms on them and just paying attention to the area. I did this five or six times a day for a couple of weeks.

Menopause, Motherhood and Ageing: Discarding the Ideals and Discovering True Beauty

I recently became aware how the ideals of motherhood and related beliefs have an enormous longevity and persistence in women and girls of all ages, and can even affect how we enter and experience menopause.

I have observed girls and women from ages 12 to 50 make the possibility and reality of motherhood the focus of their lives: their sole purpose of being a woman. The number of women seeking fertility treatments has skyrocketed over the last two decades as the desire, and often desperation, to have a child kicks in, with the promise of motherhood and a complete family. In truth, and perhaps, surprisingly, this motherhood ideal continues after menopause.

The Power of Women Appreciating One Another

I recently spent the weekend at a sporting event where I met many women. While I was there, I had a very ordinary, extraordinary moment that made me stop and appreciate just how powerful women can be when we support one another.

I met a woman with whom I had an instant feeling of knowing her, even though I was pretty sure we had not met. We didn’t speak that much to each other over the two days. There was a moment of chatting as we waited in line for a toilet, and another moment when her friend came to see me.

What I noticed about her was her grace, and a quiet dignity within her that perhaps she hadn’t fully recognised in herself.